One-act play festival lights up Boardmore Playhouse.
Annual theatre festival runs from Thursday to Saturday at CBU
My favorite part of the annual Elizabeth Boardmore One-Act Play Festival is the great variety of plays and performers and directing styles theatregoers experience in a few hectic days.
The 2017 edition of the oneact festival runs over three days this week (Thursday, Friday, Saturday) with a slightly smaller than usual program of plays — seven in all.
The format of the festival in recent years recalls its earlier days of consecutive nights of performance requiring its participants to whirl into the CBU Playhouse with precious little time to set lights, line up sound cues, get props and costumes in order before perhaps only a single shot at a dress rehearsal on the stage before the next team of players shows up for their shift. Done right, it all resembles something between a military operation and an endurance sport.
And piped up on adrenaline, caffeine and the knowledge they have only one performance to make a big impression, the shows are always exciting theatre whether they are abstract absurdist or laugh- seeking farce.
Most of this year’s plays are, as usual for the festival, original plays — another favorite part of the festival. There are also some adaptations of literary works as well as the latest in a series of Harold Pinter one-act productions.
On Thursday, the festival opens with two new works: “The Harness”, a family drama set in 1950’s rural Nova Scotia adapted, directed, and performed by popular local actor Ron Newcombe; the evening’s second play is “The Top of the Tree”, written by Lindsay Thompson (last year’s “Herstory”) and directed by Alison Crosby, about the evolving relationship between a young girl and the married couple next door.
Friday sees a new play from Whitney Pier native, Ken Jessome who also directs “The Girl Out Back” about two basement-dwelling slackers facing some big life changes. The title explains the evening’s second play, “Paul Bishop Directs A Play”, and he also wrote and performs in it except, with the script unfinished, nobody has seen him for weeks (takes me back to the good old days).
Saturday sees both a matinee and an evening session.
In the afternoon, the first play is “Lost”, written by Marie Louise Wilson and directed by Jule Ann Hardy, about two women on their way to a matinee but find a life-changing experience instead. “Party Time”, written by Harold Pinter and directed by John Lingard, is set at a tension-filled soiree in an authoritarian country. That evening, the final production takes the stage: “Masque of the Red Death” an adaptation by Walter Carey of the famous Edgar Allan Poe tale and directed by Jenn Tubrett, about a sumptuous and decadent feast during a deadly plague.
After a short break, the festival concludes with the annual awarding of achievement awards by the festival adjudicator, Mary Vingoe (who will discuss each play after their scheduled sets of performances).
Besides founding four major theatre companies, Vingoe is one of Canada’s most respected theatre professionals as a director, playwright, artistic director, teacher and actor who has worked across Canada.
Most recently, Vingoe
directed Wendy Lill’s “The Glace Bay Miner’s Museum” (based on the novel by Glace Bay-born Sheldon Currie) for the National Arts Centre and Neptune Theatre. Her comments on the plays are worth a pass for the entire festival.
After the awards are presented, winners and non-winners party as friends at the festival’s concluding reception.
And as a followup to the festival, this month’s Governor’s Book Pub will feature cast members and others from the festival performing dramatic readings from their plays.
The Book Pub returns on its regular night, the third Tuesday of the month, Tuesday, March 21, 7 p.m., at its usual location in the Esplanade eatery (after a packed house visit in February to the Hearthstone Inn on King’s Road). The evening starts at 7 p.m. with admission by a goodwill donation to the Jar of Consequence (and a chance to win some fabulous book prizes), and an invitation for any aspiring writers to read a short excerpt
of their own work during the Open Stage session.
And, tickets are moving fast for the Highland Arts Theatre original production, “The Return of The C.B.L.A.” (which opens its eight-performance run on Wednesday, March 22) — and not just to aging hippie anarchists. Besides, you get to see me perform as a character named “Ken Chisholm”.